Afterwards
by Djclljx
Summary: Jem and Scout all grown up. An essay I did for English....got a 99%...a very captivating ending...


I backed away from the small, defiled statue with titillation; Jem had come to visit! I hadn't seen Jem in nearly ten years, hadn't heard from him at all in that time either. Ever since Atticus died, Jem had stopped calling me every weekend like he did before; he took the death badly. What could possibly warrant his arrival at my house after all these years?  
Meekah called up from downstairs telling me again to get down here and greet my brother. "Miss Jean Louise, you be right courteous now and say hello to your good brother Mr. Finch now. What you be doing up there Miss? He's your brother. He don't care how you look."  
"I'm coming, Meekah. Hold your pants on!"  
Slipping a pair of ruffled overalls on over the clothes I was wearing, I walked into the bathroom and quickly brushed my hair down. I'd just woken up and it was a disaster. All right Jem, I'm coming. I ran down the stairs in anticipation. Good old Jem, he'd followed Atticus' footsteps; not only the best lawyer ever to sit in the court of Maycomb county, but the best shot around, couldn't miss a bird from a quarter mile away. I couldn't wait to walk into his warm smile and see what news brought him to my little home in the suburbs of Chicago, nearly a million miles away from back home in Alabama.  
When I rounded the last turn in the stairway and had a clear view into the living room, I was shocked. Was that really Jem Finch? No, it couldn't be. A tall, lanky man stood near the doorway outside. He was wearing a gray trench coat along with the business suit and tie and his depreciated tan hat. The lines on his face and the sacks under his eyes coalesced with his pale skin to give the impression that he was no younger than sixty. What had happened to the young, imaginative, and creative Jeremy Finch that I grew up with? He was only forty or so, not the extra twenty years his face and emaciated body made him appear to be.   
"Jem? What's wrong? Why are you here?" I asked in an alarmed tone.  
"You're looking well, Sister," His gentle voice betrayed the demeanor of his body, showing him to be the middle-aged wise man that he really was. "Miss Cal's niece here appears to take good care of you. I gather the protests for equality among the people are going well and neat, I've heard reports of your protests on the radio."  
I cut in impatiently, "What brings you here Jem?"  
"After Atticus' death, well, at his funeral, Mr. Radley was there. Arthur… Boo. I didn't recognize him at first, he was so pale, and he dressed like he didn't want to be in the light. I imagine you didn't notice him through all your tears. Afterwards, when you had already boarded your train to Chicago, I visited him at his house. It looks different, you know, from their point of view. Looking out off the porch at our house, and Miss Maudie's, and all our neighbors, it looks different. Well, anyway, we talked. I wasn't scared of him, we went inside, it was all dark and small, but it was hardly scary at all."  
"What did you two talk about?"  
About this time Meekah left the room to the kitchen, apparently realizing these matters didn't concern her.   
Jem continued his recollection of the past decade, "Just stuff. How he had watched us play when we were young, carved soap dolls of us, you remember? He had done that one day while we were out playing one of our little theatre show productions. He just sat there day after day; we were entertaining him without knowing it. We talked and talked. He had followed your life, ya' know. He said he had followed everything you ever did… sat by the radio all day and all night sometimes, just waiting for your name to be mentioned on the news. He told me he heard about how you'd grown up to be a fine young woman who believed all people were created equal and how you strived to teach that to everyone. I brought Arthur the newspaper every day after that… When it came in the morning, we'd sit there and discuss things over a cup of ginger tea, which he loved."  
"Every day? You visited him every day?"  
"Well, I reckon I was just being neighborly. Eventually I talked him into coming out for church on Sundays. Not many there recognized him or remembered him, but the ones who did accepted him just like they would you or me. After that he began going out some and enjoying the sun. Like an apple ripens with the season, his skin got darker and even tanned a little bit. I bought him a television one Christmas and he watched you at your rallies, you were like a daughter to him, and me a father. Without you knowing it, you had a best friend through all your life."  
My eyes started welling up with tears over Jem's discussion of Arthur. I remembered that night. It must be nearly thirty years ago now that Boo had saved our lives. We had been walking home from the school's Halloween party taking the short route. It was pitch black and creepy that night; I couldn't see Jem even though he was standing there right beside me, holding my hand. Mr. Bob Ewell had been enraged because of the defending of a Negro that Atticus had done against Miss Mayella Ewell's accusation that Tom Robinson, the alleged culprit Negro, had raped her. As we walked that night under the big oak tree along the path, going slow and being careful not to trip on upended roots, we heard someone following us. We couldn't run, for if we did we surely would have fallen flat on our faces. The footfalls grew closer. Then a man attacked us. Jem couldn't defend against him, being so small and Mr. Ewell, full-grown and large. Bob had carried a knife and originally his stab at me with it was deflected by the Halloween costume I had been wearing. Jem and him wrestled but Mr. Ewell had overtaken the small boy that Jem was and broken his arm. Boo then had come up, hearing us screaming from his house, and gotten Mr. Ewell off of us (I reckon he could see in the dark better than we could, him being locked in the small house without sunlight for years). Eventually Bob Ewell fell on his own knife and died from it.  
That night I saw Boo Radley for the first time, and my last time. Jem had been unconscious and missed him. Funny, I hadn't been scared when talking to him; I almost felt sorry for him. We had a very small little talk just like we had been friends since I was a small little child. Then, I walked him home. I was anxious then to boast to Jem about seeing him, but I re-evaluated my thoughts and ended up never telling him about this encounter.  
I cut in on Jem's story and began my own little explanation of what happened that Halloween night, but he quieted me and said Arthur had already described that night to him. After a moment of silence he continued again on his story.  
"We had great times together. We were good friends. I changed his life by showing him the world… and by freeing him from his cage. He changed my life by making me realize it doesn't matter what other people think of me. He taught me that I shouldn't live my life by what other people think of me, but I should live like I want to live."  
Sensing his story was nearing an end, I looked and saw a somber look on his face. I thought I'd get back to my original question. "Jem, why are you here?"  
I could see him stifling a cry; I'd never seen him cry - not since we were little - except when Atticus died. Holding back his tears, he tried explaining. "Scout," he said. And when he said it an ominous chill went up my spine. "Arthur died." Then he took my arm and looked me square in the eyes. "No. He didn't just die, but he was murdered. By whom I don't know; but so help me Sister, I'm going to find out and I'm going to send 'em to the chair!" 


End file.
